


Must Love Prosthetic Limbs

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Capes, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 09:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13995273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: His first thought was “there’s no way that guy can handle that dog,” his second was “they’re both pretty cute,” and his third was “holy shit,” because the mastiff changed course sharply and barreled towards their bench.





	Must Love Prosthetic Limbs

He was tying his shoe on a park bench while Princess rolled around on her back in the grass beside it when he first noticed the tiniest twink he’d ever seen being dragged along on his heels by the biggest mastiff. His first thought was “ _there’s no way that guy can handle that dog_ ,” his second was “ _they’re both pretty cute_ ,” and his third was “ _holy shit_ ,” because the mastiff changed course sharply and barreled towards their bench.

The abrupt jerk to the leash sent the guy flying, screaming “No, Warhol!” while he still could, before he faceplanted right into Bucky’s lap.

Warhol and Princess busied themselves without delay.

-

Steve was cute when he was apologetic, and he seemed to think he had a lot to apologize for.

“—just got him last week, he’s supposed to go in and get neutered next Thursday, I can’t believe my rotten luck—”

“Hey,” Bucky said, waving a hand dismissively, even as he was panicking, inside. “It’s fine.”

He was a new owner, too- the doctor thought it might be good for him, while he readjusted to civilian life, to have a little unconditional love in it. She’d given him a whole bunch of literature and resources about psychiatric service dogs, just for vets, who could sniff out his episodes and even remind him to take his meds, and Bucky, overwhelmed, and true to stubborn, thickheaded form, had trashed the lot of them and adopted the dog his sister had found in the dumpster behind her building.

But it wasn’t really fine, exactly. One dog, though Bucky loved her to death, was already enough. Having something to take care of encouraged him to take care of himself, yes: it was nice to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, a friend depending on him to feed her and take her on walks, but the idea of having a bunch of them made him feel a little faint.

“It’s not your fault,” he corrected. That was better, but Steve clearly wasn’t willing to absolve himself, so Bucky carried on. “It’s probably mine, if anyone’s. I didn’t realize she wasn’t spayed.”

It was hard to remember to think of things like that. Lots of stuff fell through the cracks and landed down in the darkness with the unread mail and the unwashed laundry.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Steve said, as if he wasn’t doing just that not a minute before, so Bucky knew he must have looked truly pathetic.

Desperate to escape pity and feel compelled by it to justify himself, talk about things he’d rather not talk about, he ran through his checklist on navigating social interaction and crash landed in subsection: small talk.

“You’re an artist?” He asked.

“Huh?” Steve asked back, and Bucky felt a wave of panic. It had been so long since he engaged in small talk with anyone but the receptionist at the VA. He wondered if he’d forgotten how to do it, or at least how to sell it.

“Your dog’s name is… is Warhol,” Bucky prompted. For a second, he was terrified, and felt stupid, like he’d got it wrong, like Andy Warhol wasn’t a household name and he hadn’t seen the soup cans and wasn’t _sure_ he was an artist.

“Oh, oh yeah,” Steve said. “I have really mixed feelings about Warhol, he wouldn’t even make my top ten, but the adoption packet said dogs take best to names that are two syllables.”

Aw, Jesus, adoption packets, and actually reading them, and knowing the names and works of more than ten artists, this guy really had it together.

(“Or has _the appearance of_ having it together,” Bucky’s therapist, inside his head, reminded him.)

Bucky wondered at that. What was Steve really like? He wanted to find out.

He _really_ wanted to find out, actually.

“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink, sometime?”

He made up his mind it had been a stupid thing to ask just after he’d finished blurting it out. Was he really this starved for affection, for human contact, that he clung to the first guy he’d met in months? Steve could be straight, for all he knew. Probably was.

(Though, then again, what straight guy had “really mixed feelings about Warhol?”)

But Steve brightened, which made Bucky brighten, and responded with good humor. “You wanna apologize to me for my dog violating yours?”

“Well, I’m sort of a, y’know, gentleman.” He didn’t feel it. Fake it ‘til you make it. “I usually like to get to know a guy before I have him facedown in my lap—" Steve blushed, and Bucky liked it, and hoped to see it again, and, for a minute, he felt like he had before his deployment, like flirting, and falling in love, and being human, was easy “—but since that didn’t work out, this time around, I wanna do the right thing, after the fact. And, well, sort out the issue of the puppies.”

Steve rubbed his neck sheepishly, but he took it with further good humor. “A shotgun dinner and a movie, huh?”

Bucky thought of crowded darkness, and close proximity to strangers, and car chases, and explosions in Dolby surround sound. He was pretty sure he had said drinks.

“Sorry, you said drinks.”

“Oh, my heart wasn’t set on drinks, or anything,” Bucky hastened to clarify. “We could—” what did Steve like? What did Steve like that Bucky also liked and would feel up to? “—go to a museum.”

Good call. Steve smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “That sounds great.”

Bucky’s smile was a little rusty from disuse, but it seemed like a good time to start practicing.

**Author's Note:**

> [Thotki.tumblr.com](https://thotki.tumblr.com)


End file.
